Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump could meet Putin to discuss ceasefire next week, says White House official

Donald Trump has imposed an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, citing New Delhi’s continued imports of Russian oil.

The new measure raises tariffs on some Indian goods to as high as 50%, which are among the steepest faced by any US trading partner.

India’s external affairs ministry called the decision “extremely unfortunate.”

A face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.

This came eight months before Russia launched the biggest attack on a European nation since World War Two.

Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have not met since December 2019 and make no secret of their contempt for each other.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was asked in an interview on Fox Business about a potential Trump-Putin meeting, said “a lot has to happen before that can occur.”

Rubio said the US would be having talks with its European allies and the Ukrainians over the next few days.

He said Trump meeting directly with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine would help close an agreement, but said: “We’ve got to get close enough to that point so that a meeting like that will be productive and worth doing.”

“Today was a good day, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead,” he said. “There’s still many impediments to overcome.”

Public trust in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fell to its lowest level in around six months following rare wartime protests against a move to curb the power of anti-corruption watchdogs, a leading Kyiv pollster said.

The survey, by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, is the first by a major Ukrainian pollster to measure public sentiment since Mr Zelensky sparked anger with a move to subordinate the agencies to a hand-picked prosecutor-general.

Thousands of Ukrainians had rallied in Kyiv and other cities late last month against the fast-tracked measures, prompting Mr Zelensky and his ruling party to quickly reverse course.

The KIIS poll, which began a day after the controversial vote on July 22, found that 58% of Ukrainians currently trust Mr Zelensky, down from an 18-month high of 74% in May and 67% in February-March.

KIIS found that those who distrust Mr Zelensky cited corruption and his handling of the war as the top two reasons, at 21% and 20%, respectively.

Trust had already been decreasing before the protests, it added, but the demonstrations “undoubtedly had an impact” on the continuing slide.

Mr Zelensky lowest wartime trust rating was 52% in December 2024, according to KIIS. The latest survey involved more than 1,000 respondents across government-controlled Ukraine.

The Russian and Chinese navies have practised hunting and destroying an enemy submarine in the Sea of Japan, Russia’s defence ministry said.

It comes days after Donald Trump said he had moved two US nuclear subs closer to Russia.

Russia said the exercise involved Chinese Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft and Il-38 planes from Russia’s Pacific Fleet, as well as helicopter crews.

“As a result of effective joint actions, the ‘enemy’ submarine was promptly detected and mock-destroyed,” the defence ministry said.

“After practising anti-submarine tasks, the crews of the Russian and Chinese ships thanked each other for their fruitful work.”

The anti-submarine exercise was part of a wider series of Russian-Chinese naval drills over the past week.

The two countries, which signed a “no-limits” strategic partnership shortly before Russia went to war in Ukraine in 2022, conduct regular military exercises to rehearse coordination between their armed forces and send a deterrent signal to adversaries.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Donald Trump could speak to Vladimir Putin in the next two days.

He said that he does not know whether an in-person meeting will take place next week, or where it could take place.

Asked whether Trump would impose sanctions on Russia on Friday as planned, Mr Rubio said the President would decide in the next 24-36 hours.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that Russia “expressed their desire to meet with President Trump” following a report in the New York Times.

“The President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelensky,” she told reporters.

Her statement did not address the potential timing of any meeting.

Russian artillery shelling killed three people and injured four on Wednesday in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Nikopol, the regional governor said.

Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said two men and a woman died in the attack.

Nikopol, lying on the Ukrainian-held north side of the Dnipro River in the region, frequently comes under Russian attack.

The RBK-Ukraine media outlet said the strike hit a car belonging to the state emergency services and one of the victims killed was an emergency worker.